We're fired up and fighting
By Donna Smith, community organizer
WASHINGTON, DC -- It was hot in these suits -- really hot. But what a fired up protest we had in DC yesterday! And we followed that loud and targeted protest with a somber and respectful vigil at sundown. It was a wonderful day of single payer action. (read the AFL-CIO blog linked above for more details.)
But the message I heard over and over again from people on the street was disgust with a government that can act with amazing speed when the money interests are threatened but wait years for meaningful healthcare reform all the while knowing people are dying.
Disgusting is the word I heard used by cab drivers, homeless in DC parks, hotel desk staff, waiters, dish washers and scores of others as I listened to citizens of the nation's capital express their anger.
And all across the nation this week, groups of healthcare activists are reaching out to pareticipate in the 2nd Annual Healthcare Justice Week, sponsored by American Patients United and Healthcare-Now.
Sunday saw a New Orleans style funeral in Camden, NJ. In DC we stood outside the hotel where the industry group of the for-profit health insurance companies were meeting and planning for their future growth of power. Today we'll see protests at the Humana headquaters in Chicago. And so the fight goes... citizens who give a damn in the streets and fired up.
As we remembered last night at the Capital Reflecting Pool, there are hundreds of thousands of folks who cannot join us in the streets. Our casualties -- our unnecessary dead of the healthcare justice struggle.
We remember them this week. And we honor all those still fighting. We support single payer, publicly funded and privately delivered healthcare for all. The current legislation is John Conyers' HR676, and it would have saved lives.
With a little appropriate speed, our Congress could have acted and saved those lives. And we know it and are disgusted that they did not.